


cubes and others

by tillsunrise



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24010798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tillsunrise/pseuds/tillsunrise
Summary: Taeil and his mysterious friend have never met face-to-face. They've been communicating primarily through a Rubik’s cube.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Moon Taeil
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	cubes and others

**Author's Note:**

> i've never done slice of life before, so if this sucks, that's why LMAO sorry again in advance for any mistakes! enjoy!

Moon Taeil was a perfectionist with one fatal flaw: the Rubik’s cube. It sounded stupid, but it was the truth. Taeil’s desk in his apartment was perfect, except for the mess of a Rubik’s cube on his table.

At first, it had been therapeutic to just keep scrambling it mindlessly. From the click of the plastic to the whirl of a well-oiled side, it presented endless combinations. Taeil liked that a lot conceptually. He just hated the damn thing in reality.

Ten called him out on it one day, though, when they were editing each other’s abstracts in the computer lab. “Hyung, why don’t you solve it? It’s dumb to carry around an unsolved cube everywhere.”

“I don’t really know how to, and that’s not why I bought it,” Taeil said, only the tiniest bit offended.

Taeil felt dumb explaining that it had been a thing with his ex. Taeil used to scramble it, and his ex would solve it. He wasn’t even hung up on the guy anymore, but the cube had become a stress reliever he didn’t even have to think too hard about. It had been with him through the many all-nighters spent binging coffee he hated, the anxious minutes counting down to his tests and all the stupid conferences where he had to network with industry reps without crying. (As if he wasn’t doomed for an eternity in academia.)

“Who buys a puzzle they don’t want solved? That doesn’t make any sense,” Ten muttered absentmindedly, really more interested in noting the comma splice in Taeil’s thesis statement.

Taeil winced. It really was an embarrassing comma splice. And yeah, Ten was right. It was high time he learned how to solve the stupid thing.

.

.

.

That was easier said than done, though.

Taeil thought he’d tossed out the manual whenever his ex-boyfriend moved out, but he found it in a drawer in his TV stand over the weekend. And it was confusing and stupid as shit, so then Taeil really did throw it out.

In the recycling, though. He wasn’t heartless.

But Taeil got into the habit of carrying the cube in his backpack everywhere. It had become like a personal fidget spinner, but nerdier and worse. He needed a major F in the chat.

.

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Taeil was in the south campus library, frustrated over the cube—yeah, again—while waiting for his computer to finish restarting. It had been lagging and freezing a lot lately, which was concerning for a math major that hardly ever physically went to lecture and learned everything online.

His computer decided to freeze during the restart process too, so Taeil decided to go to the bathroom quickly. It was quick, so Taeil felt safe leaving his stuff there. Very dumb, but at least he was being a calculated idiot.

He came back a few minutes later, only to find the cube had magically solved itself. What?

.

.

.

Johnny laughed at him during their partial differential equations lecture. “Sorry, hyung, are you sure you didn’t solve it yourself and then forget?”

Taeil scowled. “No, you dumbass. I don’t even know how to solve it, so it definitely wasn’t me.”

“Who else was with you?” Johnny asked.

“No one!” Taeil’s voice was getting higher, which was never a good sign. “It was just me in the periodicals section. That place only has single desks anyway!”

Johnny hummed. “It’s not a mystery, hyung. Someone probably just saw it while they were walking around and solved it for you. It’s not a big deal,” he said.

Taeil didn’t appreciate being talked down to. “Yeah, but why? What’s the incentive?” he pressed.

Johnny just spun a pen around his middle finger. God, another thing Taeil couldn’t do. Johnny just shrugged carelessly and went back to scrolling Tinder, responding to matches as if weed wasn’t his one and only soulmate.

Fantastic.

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.

Taeil went back to the same periodicals section a few days later on Friday. It was very much the superior place to study because a) all his friends hated it and b) it was quiet and warm and c) yeah, the aisles were dark and straight out of a horror movie.

It had character, and there was no better place to die tragically while at college.

Taeil was stressed over his research paper. He knew his proofs were solid, but as much as he needed to advocate for his solutions, he needed to tear them down and analyze their limitations and ultimate viability too. Also, his supervisor hated him. Probably because he never went to class. Or their weekly meetings. 

Taeil sighed. He needed a walk to clear his head. He plugged in his headphones to do a lap and call it his exercise for the day. That, and the wall pushups from this morning.

His college had a lot of libraries, but this one was for sure his favorite. He loved multilevel libraries as much as the next broke student, but he liked older libraries more than libraries with modern architecture. Certainly, floor-to-ceiling glass windows were cool, but Taeil always felt they sharpened things excessively. It was like when the sun is too bright for your eyes. A mile of shelves with absolutely no sunlight that could damage the books felt far more like home for him.

When Taeil came back embarrassingly winded from taking the stairs, he saw the cube was solved again.

Weird. Taeil sat down again to respond to his supervisor’s many, many emails about rescheduling. He Googled how to solve the cube, but it kept showing him the same damn manual he’d thrown out. Useless.

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Taeil scrambled the cube again. He didn’t want it solved by someone else; he’d wanted to do it himself. Having someone else do it for him defeated the whole purpose, but Taeil also really wanted to know who.

So the next week when Taeil swung by the periodicals section after the intro calculus course he TA’ed (not of his own volition, please), he left a post-it note. On the bottom of the cube:  _ hi who are you + why are you solving my cube? _

Taeil took his laptop with him this time as he searched for a Guilleman/Pollack book on differential topology that Doyoung had recommended. People always thought math and literature were the farthest things apart, but theoretical math could only be explained in words. Once the basics were within your palm, math was simply trying different combinations to prove what you already knew. It made sense to Taeil. And, Taeil figured, if he was gonna read a book for fun, it might as well be about something useful.

Taeil had almost forgotten about his note until he swung back for the coat he left on the chair. And then, another perfectly solved Rubik’s cube, underneath which was much neater handwriting than Taeil’s:  _ it’s a win-win _

Boo. Taeil didn’t like that answer at all. He folded that post-it note, saved it in his coat pocket, and searched for another one. This time:  _ how are you solving it? like what method? _

Taeil was slightly creeped out, but he was also curious. Then again, dating in college was the exact same mix of feelings, plus extra prayers that you wouldn’t be murdered. Besides, it’s not like he sat at the same desk every day. So he left again, looking for some Yusef Komunyakaa for Taeyong, who didn’t have time to check the poetry book out himself. The poor babe was stressed over his thesis defense, which was next Tuesday.

He was only gone for six minutes at most, but he’d gotten a response:  _ fridrich method!! it’s the fastest~ _

Huh, Taeil thought.

.

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Taeil went out for dinner with Taeyong that night, to give him his book but also make sure Taeyong was mentally okay. Of all people, Taeil understood the pressure, but Taeyong struggled especially with allowing himself to rest.

“The thing is the poems you can get away with being vague, but the defense needs to breathe evidence and verbal citations everywhere. I have to defend each vague poem and insist it has meaning. It’s like I’m doing a fraction of the innovation while writing and then trying to compensate for it later. In words and in front of that panel, I have to prove that it’s experimental or that it adds anything to the fucking conversation,” Taeyong was explaining.

“And public speaking gives you anxiety, but you can’t work your way around this one,” Taeil realized.

Taeyong sighed into his taco. “It all makes logical sense in my head, but when I speak, everything crumbles. Being an English major is so humiliating I can’t even explain it!”

Taeil laughed graciously. “Trust me, choosing to do math is no better.”

Taeyong nodded solemnly, having been burned by math once before. Taeyong normally always had eye bags, but they were a deep purple today, which worried Taeil. He needed rest or at least a story to tire him into it.

“So there’s this ghost that’s been solving my Rubik’s cube for me,” began Taeil. He updated him on the post-it notes, which was new.

“Taeil, that’s actually kinda cute, but in a slightly freaky way. Like someone adores you enough to help you out, but not enough to introduce themselves.”

“Yeah, but if they know me, they should know me well enough to speak up, right? As fun as a personal Magic-8 Ball is, I’d rather know who,” sighed Taeil.

“I mean, if you’ve been sorta talking to them, you could ask them to, right?” Taeyong said, scooping up his taco droppings with a spork.

.

.

.

Taeil tries it on Thursday.  _ would you be down to teach me fridrich’s in person? _

Taeil doesn’t add that he’d already looked into it and found it a shorter method than the manual’s version, but was still confused by it. He got it conceptually, but someone slowing it down visually and kinesthetically for him would help him so much more.

Taeil tries to hide between shelves 30 feet away to try and see who in case they came back. But he gets distracted by a text from Yuta inviting him to the basketball game and by the time he responds, Taeil’s missed his opportunity. The Rubik’s cube had shifted on his desk.

_ have you even tried googling it? _

Taeil flushed.  _ yeah, i just need to see it visually.  _

20 minutes later after Taeil grabs an asiago cheese bagel from the café downstairs:  _ lmaoooooo okay, this time tmrw? bring skittles !!!!! _

That was a perfectly acceptable payment method, Taeil agreed.

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“Sicheng,” the boy in front of him was explaining. “I don’t know; it was just an impulse. Like who carries around a puzzle they don’t want to solve?”

Taeil frowned; he and Ten would get along swimmingly. “It used to be a thing with my ex. Unfortunately in that deal, I never learned how to solve it. And now I’m stuck with it,” he said. Taeil was surprised at his own honesty.

Sicheng laughed brightly. “Oh, that makes so much more sense now! Yeah, there was no way I could’ve known that. I used to do a similar thing with my art friend where I just scribbled, and she’d finish it into a full-on sketch,” he recalled.

A beat of silence where he felt out of place. “So, Fridrich’s?” Taeil asked, very much wanting to move on. He didn’t want to talk about his ex or have to come out immediately to a stranger.

Sicheng blinked and smiled again, compassionate. “It’s the fastest method. All the pros who solve under a minute use it. You solve layer by layer but without messing up the other components, so it doesn’t really matter the way it’s scrambled. Roux has fewer moves but is harder to solve quickly.”

Taeil nodded as if he understood. He did not, but Sicheng looked very pretty explaining stuff.

“And your Rubik’s cube is already well lubricated, so it’s perfect,” he added as an afterthought.

“Uh,” croaked Taeil intelligently, craving death right then and there. “What do you study?”

“I’m a sophomore in the dance program,” Sicheng said modestly.

“Whoa, that’s amazing. When did you pick up this?” 

“Middle school, amazingly. All my friends were doing it, and the peer pressure simply was too much. Tragic,” Sicheng sighed dramatically.

Taeil giggled. Oh. Sicheng was witty. And really pretty. Taeil felt like the world had tilted just a bit, not enough to be adjustable but just enough to shake something deep inside. 

This was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was absolutely fine. Ha. His apartment was on fire, and he was just sitting at his dinner table, waiting for Donald Glover to show up with pizza.

Sicheng walked him through all the steps. Whenever their fingers brushed when handing the cube back and forth, Taeil felt a little tingly. It was probably the temperature, though. Taeil didn’t perfectly get it right away, of course, but he got the concept of the algorithms down and promised to work on it.

“I don’t even know how to properly thank you,” admitted Taeil. How do you thank someone for something meaningful, even if it wasn’t meaningful for them? Was there even a way?

“Oh my god, no, don’t worry about it at all. You didn’t even have to bring the Skittles. It’s no problem,” Sicheng reassured.

“Still,” Taeil said, and his mood darkened a tiny bit. 

“Listen, this is going to sound super weird, but I promise it’s not, and you can totally say no. But, um, would you maybe want to grab dinner sometime?” Sicheng asked.

“Oh, um, yeah, sure,” Taeil fumbled. “How about this weekend?”

Sicheng broke out into a heart-stoppingly brilliant smile. “Sure, does 7:30 on Saturday sound good?” he suggested.

Taeil nodded, but his legs were still feeling wobbly for some reason. 

“Great, see you!” Sicheng said, quickly scribbling out something on a post-it and yeeting out with the Skittles he bought him. Taeil was left a little dazed. 

And there on his Rubik’s cube: a post-it note with Sicheng’s number. Man, Taeil was fucked.

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Johnny frowned at him the moment he actually showed up at lecture on a Monday. “Oh my god, you have to tell me who, or I’m never letting you take hits ever again.”

Taeil straight up cackled.


End file.
